Prosecutorial Accountability after Connick v. Thompson

Abstract

Both recent Supreme Court decisions such as Van de Kamp v. Goldstein and Connick v. Thompson, as well as newspaper incidents such as the prosecutorial misconduct of Michael Nifong and the prosecutor of the Ted Stevens case, have brought renewed attention to the issue of prosecutorial accountability. Though many have, in the past, lamented or tired to measure prosecutorial misconduct, this article argues that the theory of the Connick case (failure to train prosecutors liability under section 1983), while failing to in itself represent a new method of accountability), can be tweaked in favor of a theory (failure to respond and discipline prosecutors), which is both legally and politically viable.

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